ABSTRACT
In 1987 the Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, received as a gift a red-granite male head from a sarcophagus lid (see fig. 1).1 Except for the tip of the nose, the face is complete. Both ears are preserved. He wears a divine wig, of which only the top part, above the ears, remains, and a divine beard. There is a break just below the chin where the beard has been reattached. The absence of a uraeus or other distinguishing mark of royalty (such as a royal headdress) indicates that this is not the head of a king but of a private person. A panel in sunk relief at the top of the head shows the goddess Nephthys with upraised arms and the upper parts of three lines of inscription: 'Words spoken: I have surrounded this [my brother the Osiris So-and-so. Your limbs] shall not be weary.' Although the goddess is preserved only from about the waist up, she was undoubtedly seated on the gold-sign.
